In the dying days of the Super Famicom system, or SNES,
as it is known in North America, Namco and the wunderkind Wolf Team made
Tales of Phantasia. A 48-megabit cartridge, it was one of the largest
Super Nintendo games ever made, and it was a great game as well. Like
many gems in the RPG world, ToP never made it across the Pacific. With
the success of that game and a then-little known console called the Sony
Playstation, Tales of Destiny was released in 1997, and sent to North
America in 1998. For all that the Playstation console offers, ToD could
have been a lot more, and it is important to note that development house
Wolf Team left Namco shortly after Tales of Phantasia was released. Despite
this setback, Tales of Destiny is a solid game that provides the experience
of one of the SNES's best RPG games on the Playstation for a worldwide
audience.

One of the best aspects of ToD is its battle system. To make up for
the relatively high enemy encounter rate in the game, ToD provides a unique
take on battles: 2D Combat. Characters can attack with slashes, thrusts,
jump attacks, and special skills, and weapons in the game are designed
to meet these requirements. Targeting is usually auto or semi-automatic,
but for the greatest challenge, an accessory in the game allows a character
to switch to manual control. While it takes some getting used to, combat
is a lot better. Needless to say, if someone can master a game such as
Street Fighter Alpha 3, manual battles will not be a problem. To make
things even easier, tech points (a.k.a. magic) are gained after every
battle, and this takes a considerable amount of challenge away from the
game. While not necessary, this does encourage the use of battle skills
and spells; some of which are fun to watch. ToD battles will be the focus
of a large part of the game, and it is a welcome break from the norm of
turn-based or real-time battles.

Other aspects of the game become much more standardized
from here. Menu interfaces are largely designed as a supplement for character
development, and like almost every other console RPG to date, ToP is no
exception. Unique to the Tales series is the Food Sack, which acts as
a healer of sorts. Although its use is not necessary in the game, it can
be an aid at times. Even better is the "Rune Bottle", which is able to
upgrade certain items in the inventory. The design is solid enough where
it supports the battle system, and it serves its purpose.

Although Tales of Destiny is an RPG in the "retro" sense, "retro" RPG's
can still have great music. ToD's music isn't awful, but it isn't too
memorable either. Even considering the times, Tales of Phantasia even
had a J-Pop theme song to go with it: on the Super Nintendo! In battles,
however, there are voiceovers of battle cries…including the classic "INDIGNATION!"
. All of these are done by Japanese voice actors. Although they do get
annoying after a while, they are far better than their North American
counterparts.

At the same time, it does leave a little unfinished
touch to the localization effort done by Namco…it is a sad state when
fan translators of ROM images do better than the game companies themselves.
No huge grammatical errors or plot holes are present, but even so, this
could be because of the simple nature of ToD's story.

"An unknown hero meets an assorted group of characters that fight a horror
from an ancient civilization." Wow. Hasn't this been done before? While
it serves as the basis for a solid fantasy story, there was nothing really
memorable about the Ae'ther Wars or King Garr. Fortunately, all of the
character types filled their roles well, and there are occasional rivalries
and/or hookups (such as Stahn and Rutee). It's nothing touching, but the
purpose is served.

Following the trend of the rest of the game, many of the
graphics in Tales of Destiny look like they could have come from the original
SNES game, but Namco made a serious effort to modernize the look of the
game. Unlike its predecessor, ToD takes advantage of the Playstation's
hardware to create an environment similar to Final Fantasy 7, and the
battle effects and voiceovers are polished. In addition, there is an anime-style
opening and ending…but that's it. It's a shame to see the American box
say that a "Gorgeous anime-style opening and ending set the mood of the
adventure", but if that helped sell this game, I would approve of it.

This is why Tales battles
are so fun!

Tales of Destiny is not a great game, but it is a solid
one…and it did have to live up to an incredible sibling. While the effort
put into it seems a little haphazard, the solid formula used with ToD
gives gamers a new twist on battles with the combat, something that every
Tales game has used with success. For an extra challenge, Namco inserted
a little of their own history and based ToP's secret dungeon off of one
of their old arcade games: The Tower of Druaga. While ToP itself is not
too challenging, the Tower of Druaga is a pain (as any secret dungeon
should be), and it is complete with the original arcade music itself!

At the very least, Tales of Destiny was the first game of the series
to be released stateside. Although it is not the miracle that its predecessor
was, it serves as an introduction to the series, and that alone is worth
buying the game.